We will post a 35-minute video update to the World Economic forum (see “Helpful Video” thread) that will cover key markets. We have warned that January looked like a correction all around. Wall Street rallied after a hesitant start on Thursday as oil prices led the way after surging with a big gain. ECB President […]

Well, today was fun! Asia suffered from the start with heavy selling across the board. Both the Nikkei and HSI closed down almost 4% with Shanghai losing just 1%. Most blamed the IMF down-sizing its growth forecast (from 3.6 to 3.4%) but obviously, the oil price is never far from everyone lips. With WTI closing […]

Overnight the Chinese data that the whole market was waiting for actually missed on the estimate (forecast was 6.9 but actual came in at 6.8) but all was forgiven after the PBOC injected more liquidity combined with rumours of additional supporting measures! The Shanghai Index loved the move and returned a 3% daily push. In […]

The fear has been that Iran will start dumping oil now that the sanctions have been lifted. Thus, crude has been falling out of bed in a nightmare scenario. The fact that Crude was below $35 and then rallied to close above it for the 2015 year-end closing was a warning that the long-term may […]

The opening in Asia was the main discussion point for most dealers today. Oil hitting its lowest price ($27.65) since 2003, the Nikkei trading down 2% in the first 30 minutes of trading, and the Chinese raising the off-shore yuan all helped to spook markets. However, finally the fears were short-lived, and by close the […]

We did NOT elect  the Weekly Bearish today in the Dow Jones Industrial Japan tried to hold overnight gains but by the time the rest of the Asian markets opened it was too late and the selling pressure just increased with time. Nikkei closed down 94 points (-0.5%) but the futures quote dropped an additional […]

There was a time when a 2% price swing used to be something to write about! Asia returned a mixed session with the Nikkei (-2.6%) handing back most of yesterday’s gains. The Shanghai (+2%) recovered late in afternoon trading and finally the HSI (-0.56%) was way off of the opening lows. Early data in Japan […]

A mixed session in Asia (Nikkei +2.9% and Shanghai -2.4%) left just the HSI as the deciding factor and that closed stronger at +1.1%. Europe and the U.S. futures were all pricing in a stronger open and until mid-day (Europe) that was pretty much business as usual. Yes, we did see a turn in the […]

With Japan closed (Coming of Age Day) we were forced, yet again, to watch the excitement unfold on the Chinese exchange. Most of the talk was on the foreign exchange market where the off-shore currency quote (CNH) saw a huge jump (940bp) on the Hong Kong overnight quote to a 6.5850 (last seen +1.5% against […]

As you would have expected, all eyes were on Shanghai as the stock market opened with no limit restrictions imposed. It was not to be the session from hell that some dealers had feared but was almost calm. It is human nature to want to sell when they are restricted. When they have the ability […]